Gather Town Information

Accessing Virtual Farpoint on Gather Town:

To access Farpoint on GatherTown, use this link: https://gather.town/app/YRPETqgYG6KzZ5nF/FarpointCon

Enter the one-time password: StarTrek

Gather Town will ask to access your microphone and your camera. If you wish to interact with others on the virtual con floor, you will need to allow access to both.

Type your name in the block below “What Is Your Name?” and press the “Join the Gathering” button.

You’re now in the lobby of our virtual Farpoint! Use your arrow keys to move around. In the lobby you will see:

• A Tech Support area: move your character onto one of the chairs in this area and a tech guru will help you with any problems you may have
• A Schedule area: move your character onto one of the chairs and access the convention schedule
• An Info area: move your character onto one of the chairs and chat with staff at our information desk
• There are tables and chairs in the lobby; move your character onto one of the chairs, and you can talk with other folks at the table
• Cinnamon Tree Restaurant/Polo Bar & Lounge: two more areas where you can hang out and chat with other con goers.

Explore Virtual Farpoint!

Just like the Hunt Valley, we’ve set up an upper level and a lower level filled with convention fun! Wander the corridors of our virtual convention space to find:

Upper Level:

• Pool – two hot tubs areas where you can hang out and chat
• Art Show – with links to artists’ websites
• Gaming – walk up to a table and join a game!
• Green Room – for panelists to hang out (requires a password to enter)
• Staff Room – for staff members to hang out (requires a password to enter)
• Access points to the Lower Level

NOTE: Through the magic of Digital Space-Time Manipulation, the rooms in the "Glass Hallway" (Tack, Derby, Chase, Belmont) are located on the Lower Level of the Virtual Hunt Valley

Lower Level:

• Panel Rooms – check the sign in front of the room to see the schedule of panels going on in that room. The sign will glow yellow and there will be a notification that shows up saying ‘Press x to interact with -object-’; press x on your keyboard to “attend” the panel!
• Dealers Area – with links to dealers’ websites
• Ballrooms – check out our virtual Ten-Forward happening in the Valley & Hunt Ballrooms – with a music playlist courtesy of Vic’s Place and the Pack Ratz!

What you need:

• A desktop/laptop with a mic and camera.
• A web browser (Chrome or Firefox recommended).
• We strongly recommend using headphones to help prevent feedback.
• That’s it! There’s nothing to install, no software to download.

How it works:

• Gather is a video chat platform that has avatars move around a map. As you get close to other avatars, your videos will pop up and you will be able to chat.
• Move around the space using the arrow keys.
• By moving your avatar around you can have spontaneous conversations with those around you. These can be either one-on-one or small groups depending on how many people are around your avatar.
• When your avatar moves closer to an interactable object, it will glow yellow and there will be a notification that shows up saying ‘Press x to interact with -object-’. This can range from informational flyers, playable arcade games, integrated Zoom meetings, and more!

Lower Toolbar Icon explanations:

Change your avatar character and clothing by clicking on the character; you can shuffle through several 8-bit variations to find your best you! Click on your name to open the settings menu, where you can:

• Edit Your Name
• Change User/Video Preferences
• Turn On Quiet Mode (if you don’t feel like chatting)
• Reset Position (click this, and you’ll be whisked back to the lobby!)
• Sign In (if you want to create a GatherTown account)

Mini map to preview the space you’re in

Screen sharing ability

Emotes that appear above your avatar.

• Applause
• Heart React - used to show caring or approval
• Party Popper Celebrate/Party
• Thumbs Up - a way of showing general approval
• Question Mark
• Raise Hand - Techs will be looking for this and will come over to help you as soon as they have time. This is the only one that shows up on the Participants list. It is also the only one that stays up until you bring it down.

Side Toolbar Icon Explanations:

Another way to access Settings is to click on the gear icon located on the left side of the page. Here you’ll be able to access the same menu as you did by clicking on your name in the lower toolbar.

The next symbol you’ll see is a Calendar icon. You’ll click on this to see what events are upcoming and which room they’re in.

Below the calendar icon there’s a Chat Bubble icon which you’ll click on if you want to chat. You’ll be given the option to select Nearby where it’ll send to everybody within a certain radius, Everyone which will message everybody that’s currently logged into Gather Town or you can private message by clicking on an individual user's name.

The last icon is the Participants that will show everybody who is currently active or has been active very recently (roughly a 15 minute window of going inactive). Right clicking on the name will give you a menu where you can private message someone, locate someone, or follow someone.

Farpoint 2021 Discord Information

The Farpoint Discord server can be found at: https://discord.gg/NVxrsSgd8M

This should bring you to either the web or, if you already have it installed, the desktop application and straight to the Farpoint server.

When you join the server you will see 2 channels. The rest are hidden until you accept our Code of Conduct.

• The first channel is called Help! This is if you are having problems accepting the Code of Conduct or any other technical issues.
• The second is 01-START HERE! This is where you should start. In that channel you should see a message that has our Code of Conduct. To accept the Code of Conduct click the thumbs up directly below that message.
• Once you click this you should have more channels show up including Channel 02-Interests which should be your next place to go

In this channel you’ll see the categories After Panel Discussion, Fan Tables, Dealers, and Gaming, each one with its own icon. Clicking on that icon below the message will turn on that category so you can see it in the sidebar. Clicking it again will turn it off.

This is so that you can see only the content you are interested in. You can come back at any time to change these choices.

Once you have selected which categories you’re interested in please move on to the 03-Introductions channel. In here please post who you are and how people would know you in meatspace.

Now you’re on the server!

Using Discord

In front of the channels on the sidebar you’ll notice two different symbols. A # or a speaker symbol. The # marks a text channel, the speaker symbol an audio & video channel, which you can join to have discussions with up to 25 users in a single channel.

To join an audio channel, click the channel. At the bottom of the channel list a box will appear with a mute button, a deafen button to turn off your speakers temporarily, a video button to turn on and off your camera and a screen share to share things such as photos of your dogs, or costumes or whatever you’d like to share. You’ll also see a little phone icon with an ‘x’ as the way to leave an audio channel.

You can be in only one audio channel at the same time but you can hop between text channels at the same time.
In the category General Discussions we have a channel called Announcements where you can go and see announcements including schedule postings.

Other channels in the General Discussions category are:

• General
• Lobby
• Polo Lounge and Bar
• Frankie and Vinny’s

All these places are for general discussions of any topics which you would normally have in convention hallways.

Other categories you may have turned on are:

• After Panel Discussions which is sorted by room, please keep the discussions to the rooms that correspond with the panel subject.
• Dealers and Fan Tables are places to chat with whichever dealers and fan table host might be around at the time
• Gaming where games such as horizons, jackbox games, and possibly table top rpg’s will be hosted.

Each category has a caret symbol next to it, clicking on that collapses the list of channels within or brings them back. When the category is collapsed, you will see channels that have unread messages only under that category.

By clicking on the caret next to the server name and going to Notification Settings you can change which notifications you get from this server.

While Discord has a large variety of other features these are the ones we feel should be highlighted.

Getting Additional Help

If you have further questions please feel free to message our Tech Crew.

If you have any problems you can create a ticket in the Open Tickets Channel by typing -ticket open *insert reason here*